Pillowcases and More

This guy fabric has turned into five pillowcases for soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. I have had the star wars fabric for a while as I was going to make a quilt for my son, but then he discovered dragons and that was the end of that. So I decided to make these pillowcases for the service men/women who are serving our country and putting their lives on the line for us to have all this wonderful freedom we enjoy. It is a small thing to do and I am so glad to be able to do something for them. My dad is a former seaman who served during the Korean War. This is my way of saying thank you to those who serve. I will be making more of these as time allows. I have posted previously about this project that Debra Spinic you can find it here: http://operationpillowcase.blogspot.com/ is spearheading and she has even set up a blog that you can go to and check out all the other pillowcases being made. While there sign up to make some and know that you are bringing a little bit of sunshine into a soldiers life.

Next up is this wonderful needle case that is the second gift of my prize from Cheryl over at "Willowberry Designs". The first one she made never made it here, so she was kind enough to make me another one. She also sent this great doily with the needle case. I will be using the doily in an upcoming crazy quilt block, maybe the "Peacock Tails" block. Anyhow, a big thank you to Cheryl for the needle case redo.

Look what finally came in the mail! I have been admiring these blocks on several blogs that are making this quilt. I fell instantly in love with this quilt and just knew that I had to make one. I finally got the information to order me a book and it has finally arrived!

Ok so now I have decided that not only am I going to make myself one but I am going to make my mom one also (hers will take precedence over mine at the moment as mine will be a swip). My mom will be turning 76 this coming August and I want to make this basket quilt for her in blue. Those of you who read my blog knows about her having a stroke in Oct. of this past year along with her congestive heart failure. We are so happy just to have her with us and I wanted to do something special for her. She loves blue in all shades so I am going to make the baskets in blues. I am also going to ask those who have some scraps that you may be going to be getting rid of I would love to have them if they are in shades of blue. If you want to donate some stash to this project you can email me at stitchduchess2@yahoo.com and let me know. My stash is very limited on blues so I will be purchasing blue along the way. I have a really pretty blue mottled fabric that I will be using for the background. As soon as it arrives I will post a pic of it. In the meantime I will be gathering blues for her quilt and cutting out baskets. I need 300 baskets for this project so lots of cutting in my future. I figure if I do 20 basket blocks a week it will take me 3 1/2 months to piece if I do so by hand then another month to quilt by hand. So if I start at the beginning of Feb. I should have this quilt finished and ready for her at the beginning of June or middle of July at the latest. That is what I will be shooting for as a finish date. Then I can wrap it and it will be ready for her birthday on August 26th. This will give me a little bit of room if for some reason I do not get 20 baskets done in a week. They are 6" blocks so I should be able to whip them out fairly easy. That would be 4 blocks a day if I have the baskets all cut and ready to go every week. So when the block fabric gets here I will cut out all 300 blocks and then that part will be done. Until then I will be cutting out the baskets from the blue fabric that I already have in my stash. I don't know how many baskets that will be, but it will be a start. And of course if I have them ready and basted I can keep some in a bag to take with me to Dr. appts and such. My hands will be very busy the coming months will this quilt and the rrs that I am participating in. I will post pics of basket progress each week and this will help to keep me on my schedule of blocks. Some days I might be able to do more blocks which will be ok too. As I said earlier in the post mine will be a slow work in progress and I will be doing mine in batiks I think. I should have enough batiks in my stash to do this quilt in a king size for my bed. I don't know what kind of background for mine as of yet maybe black.........or white I don't know yet. I know there is more than one of these in my quilting future because I love the pattern so much. Maybe a wall hanging and table runner..........the possibilities are endless with this pattern.

Happy Stitching Everyone,

Wendy